MAKING INNOVATION HAPPEN
ENHANCEMENT OVER ADVANCEMENT For the past 15 years, the focus for both DOD and the defense industry has been on delivering near-term solutions to war- fighters in theater, primarily in Southwest Asia, and DOD has spent
trillions of
dollars on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the conservative end of the spectrum of estimates, the Congres- sional Budget Office puts the total cost of both wars at $1.6 trillion to $1.65 trillion from FY01 to FY15, based on spending from DOD’s overseas contingency opera- tions account.
At the same time, Congress has focused its attention on the ongoing conflicts, not on the long-term viability of the defense acquisition system. Most of the effort to rein in acquisition inefficiencies has resided in DOD’s Better Buying Power initiative, leading to measurable dollars saved and costs avoided but nowhere near the scale envisioned by proponents of sys- temic acquisition reform in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. Tey are looking for ways to control acquisition practices that, over the past several decades, have led to development and procurement costs aver- aging 20 to 30 percent more than DOD’s initial figures, by congressional estimates.
Meanwhile, the current global picture is a far cry from that of the Cold War era, when the United States competed head to head with known adversaries for the next, best military capability. Indeed, Pentagon officials see multiple potential threats: the military modernization and expanding capabilities of several nations, including China and Russia and, to a lesser extent, North Korea and Iran; instability in the Middle East and Africa; and terrorists worldwide.
Te slowdown in defense-related R&D of all stripes and the continued lack of
58
ENERGETIC INNOVATION
Julie Douglas, an engineer at the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center's Command, Power and Integration Directorate (CERDEC CP&ID), demonstrates the Integrated Soldier Power and Data System, which ultimately will harvest energy to charge a conformal battery worn by Soldiers to power all of their wearable electronic equipment. The U.S. military is broadening its search for new capabilities to give warfighters a decisive advantage. (U.S. Army photo by Kathryn Bailey, CERDEC CP&ID)
funding mean that the services increas- ingly must seek to enhance capabilities with innovative, commercial off-the-shelf technologies. Tose solutions meet war- fighters’ needs at an economical cost but, as DOD leaders point out, provide little advantage, since they are available to any- one, friend or foe. Te defense industrial base has responded to the changes in mil- itary missions and strategies by focusing primarily on meeting DOD’s near-term needs. For the prime contractors with
Army AL&T Magazine July-September 2016
established major weapon systems and the small companies that do not have commercial sales to leverage and must diversify quickly or perish, there has been little incentive to venture into dramati- cally new solutions.
A CONCEPT THAT'S EASIER TO DEFINE THAN TO DO Now that the U.S. military is at this his- toric crossroads, how will it continue to provide warfighters with capabilities that
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